Cat camp offered much more than hiking & water sports

                                                                   Catster pic

When a virtual event lingers in the mind for weeks afterward, it must have been a notable offering. That’s 100% true of “Jackson Galaxy’s Cat Camp: @ home for the holidays!” sponsored by Petco, an all-day production on Saturday, Dec. 5. 

Apparently the latest annual Cat Camp in a series, this one offered myriad options, with a focus that couldn’t lose: “A Life Well-Lived” for cats of all ages.  Who doesn’t want that for their cats?  The day’s programs dealt with kittens, winter shelters for community cats, forms of play, prime time, making homemade toys and senior cats, among others. 

I “attended” the session on senior cats hoping as always for tips on caring for Harry (15) and Billy (13) Summers.  I learned much that I’m still mulling over and acting on as possible.  (Some key ideas appear below for other cat parent-worrywarts.)  

But first, basic info to use if you want to attend Cat Camp now.  The basic link – catcamp.com – still gets you to all the day’s programs, running about 5 hours, give or take.  You can check the schedule and scroll around, visiting different sessions.  

With no regrets, I revisited the Senior Cats segment to fill in blanks after the first go-round, when I couldn’t keep up with the lively conversation between Galaxy and Ellen M. Carozza, an LTV who lectures widely.  The two seemed like kindred spirits in their devotion to cats and to felines of all ages living vital lives. 

                                                                          ASM pic

As for senior cats, they advised seeing your cat for what she is, not what you fear is happening.  Don’t apply your own fears about aging or sickness to your cat!  Same with dementia: age-related changes are not always dementia.  Because many other health issues have similar symptoms, it’s crucial to get the broadest possible picture through vet testing. 

By age 12, 99% of cats have arthritis, which can happen all over the body.  That’s a big deal for cats, who need to balance their weight on all 4 paws.  Observe: can the cat “go to the bathroom,” eat and drink, curl up in a ball to sleep . . . comfortably?  

It may be time to raise food and water bowls and consider litter pans with an open side (as in “puppy pans”). 

Is the cat grooming at all, or properly?  If not, expect dander accumulation, greasiness and mats.  (Mats, BTW, are my current challenge with long-haired Harry, who fights any brushing near them!) 

Galaxy and Carozza offered much, much more – and you can get all that plus the other sessions by visiting catcamp.com.  Commit some time, listen and take notes if that’s your learning style, and like me, you too can become a “happy camper”! 

2 seasonal reminders 

One easy cat tip: Remember that this is (gift) box season, and cats love ’em.  Instead of re-cycling boxes, save them to re-style into fun places for felines – and their fascinated families. https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/turn-excess-holiday-boxes-into-hangout-spots-for-your-cat?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=Catster%20Ful%20ListAol%20yahoo%2030%20day%20actives%20and%20all%20others&utm_campaign=CED20201202 

Br-r-r-r-r-r!

With the cold setting in, it’s important to be alert to pets left outside. The HSUS reminds us that body fur isn’t enough protection, and it can be a crime to leave pets outside in extreme temperatures without 

food and shelter. 

If we see animals left out in the cold, we should speak up.  Here are some specifics. https://www.humanesociety.org/news/what-do-if-you-see-pet-left-out-cold?s_src=em_ha_12192020_132738.0&utm_source=convio&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=monthly_donor_update&utm_term=132738.0&utm_content=image4 

                                                                                                         HSUS pic

AnimalBeat II will return in January ’21.  For now, wishing all animals and their advocates the happiest, healthiest new year possible!  And, at any time, readers are invited to comment on blog posts and suggest topics for future attention. 

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Bear hunt underway casts a pall over other animal news

                                                    APLNJ/Bear Group pic

As I write, and probably also as you read, New Jersey black bears are being killed by trophy hunters, many from out of state.  (Yes, we’re still at crisis level in this pandemic, but hey, that shouldn’t stop hunters from flocking here to kill bears, now should it?) 

The second part of this year’s bear hunt began this morning, Monday, Dec. 7, and it will run through Saturday, Dec. 12, with a possible 4-day extension Dec. 16-19. 

Bear hunters must be accommodated. 

The Animal Protection League of NJ plans protests and daily vigils, with the latest information at https://www.facebook.com/AnimalProtectionLeagueNhhtJ. Contact Doreen.Frega@aplnj.org with questions about vigil times. 

The black cloud of the bear hunt hangs heavy over any other animal news there might be.  So I’ll open with the best thing I’ve heard lately, about an Asian elephant named Kaavan.  Long described as “the loneliest elephant in the world” -- elephants are highly social, family-oriented beings, remember – he lived alone for years in a “decrepit” zoo in Pakistan. 

Then, thanks to pop star Cher, her charity and other animal rights groups, Kaavan was flown to a conservation park in Cambodia, where he’s temporarily quarantined before exploring his new habitat, which includes three other elephants. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/05/942214125/he-will-be-a-happier-

                     Asian elephants                                 Wikipedia pic

elephant-vet-describes-what-it-was-like-to-rescue-kaavan 

Scorpions, anyone?  

My last post in October, a lengthy poem, (https://1moreonce.blogspot.com/2020/10/evolution.html) included an image of a scorpion, and the more I looked at it, the more it looked like a lobster to me. This, despite the significant differences between the two animals, starting with size. 

Later checking out the similarity, I learned the two are related.  Both have pincers and are part of the same group (Phylum Anthropoda).  However, scorpions are even more closely related to spiders (Class Arachnida), and unlike insects which have 6 legs, both scorpions and spiders have 8 legs. 

Fierce hunters, scorpions prefer their own species after insects; the link below contains an un-appetizing description of “sticky stew,” or what happens when a scorpion meets up with a cricket. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/scorpion-anatomy#:~:text=Anatomy%20of%20a%20Scorpion,part%20of%20the%20Phylum%20Arthropoda. 

Ahhh, dogs!

From the most grizzled oldster to “Teddy,” the 8-week old Lab puppy I met this morning, dogs are undeniably lovable and unarguably the best friends of many humans.  They also have great sniffers, which accounts for their behavior on walks when often their heads are not up, but down, to pick up scents their people could never detect. 

That’s because “a dog’s sense of smell is estimated to be 10,000 to 100,000 times better than that of a human.” (Humbling, isn’t it?) They have 300 million olfactory receptors to our 6 (measly) million of them. That difference is like “detecting one teaspoon of sugar in enough water to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools.” 

Little wonder dogs love “sniff walks” for learning so much about the world around them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/dog-love-working-home/2020/10/30/75adc50e-1895-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html 

“Cat Camp” 

Its name alone sounds like a good place to be: "Cat Camp."  And last weekend, it was.  I learned about it late but still got in on a session about older cats that offered excellent, helpful info. Jackson Galaxy (of “My Cat from Hell” fame) headlined the event, joined by a number of cat and kitten specialists. 

I’ll share what I got from Cat Camp next time here, when I hope to have found links too.  For now, this was one major point made and stressed: The goal with older cats is not merely their surviving, but their living a vital life.   And the person-cat relationship must be kept vital if the cat will have a vital life.

Think about that . . . .

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Your comments are welcome!  Go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com.

We’ll fight the law . . . and this time it won’t win!

turkey farm (detail) 

November has been a bad month for animals.  Think, for starters, of the myriad turkeys raised and slaughtered just for Thanksgiving (such a cruel misnomer where animals are concerned).  Then there were the smaller birds drafted into duty when family holiday gatherings were downsized (for the good of people, not turkeys).   

Of course, in NJ, the rest of this month has had to do with animal advocates’ efforts to persuade Gov. Phil (”My hands are tied!”) Murphy to call off part 2 of the bear hunt that starts Monday, Dec. 7.  By now, it looks as if the week of killing will happen, replete with out-of-state hunters flocking here for trophies more easily “won” by bear-baiting – as wholly inhumane, disease-spreading and destructive as it is, still a permissible practice here. 

 

In fact, only Alaska, the land of shooting animals from planes, joins NJ in the heinous practice of bear-baiting.   https://defenders.org/sites/default/files/publications/aerial_hunting_q_and_a.pdf

 

The Animal Protection League of NJ (aplnj.org) urges animal advocates to save these dates for bear-hunt protests: Dec. 5, 7 and 12.  Follow APL on Facebook for the latest info: https://www.facebook.com/AnimalProtectionLeagueNJ.  

 

Bear cub                                                HSUS pic

Moving right along to December, a concerted fight for our wildlife is underway between the state Fish and Game Council – seeking complete control over the Game Code -- and animal activists – hoping to comment despite the FGC’s efforts to suppress public comments on that code.  To stop the FGC’s attempted power grab, APLNJ has mailed thousands of informative postcards and offers Zoom sessions tonight and Tuesday night.  During each one, activists will be coached on how to submit comments “in support of our bears and all of our wildlife.”

 

We do not want the Fish and game Council to be in charge here! 

Seabirds 

Which brings us to the latest federal government incursion into nation-wide animal welfare.  That would be the feds’ gutting of “a long-standing federal protection for the nation’s birds,” despite objections from seemingly every (expert) quarter.  The rollback could take place within 30 days, negatively affecting birds ranging “from hawks and eagles to sea birds, storks, songbirds and sparrows,” the AP reports.

Right now, industry operations kill 450 million to 1.l billion birds annually, out of around 7 billion birds in North America.  They are electrocuted on power lines, knocked from the air by wind turbines or they die in oil field waste pits filled with toxic water.

But instead of prosecution authority for the deadly threats migratory birds face from industry, the revamped act would apply only to birds killed or harmed intentionally.  (Good luck with that.)

Chipping Sparrow

I’ve read what the president-elect plans to do and un-do on his first day in office, and I hope the current administration’s four-years of assaults on animals have been carefully noted so they too can be un-done asap starting in January.

Locally, today’s Times of Trenton includes a story about New Jersey’s numerous suits against the current administration in the interests of “millions” affected by a range of issues (think: regulation rollbacks creating more air and water pollution). For instance, in the last three years, this state has filed 24 complaints against the US Environmental Protection Agency (talk, again, about cruel misnomers!), at least some of which benefit animals.

Add those complaints to others for at least 73 total suits against the federal government, some filed alone and many with other states.  (You go, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal!)

Pandemic or no, there’s lots to keep up with and lots for us to do for New Jersey animals right now.

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What are you thinking and doing on all these issues?  I’d like to know!  Please comment on this post, or any earlier one (suggestions for relieving food insecurity perhaps?). Just go to moreonce.blogspot.com.  

Thanksgiving: still alive, still grateful

                                                                                           HSI pic

It’s nearly Thanksgiving – a blessedly non-sectarian holiday-invitation to think about all we’re grateful for.  This year, it could be very simple: we’re still alive!   

An added benefit is looking at ourselves and others with heightened appreciation.  What were annoyances before (say, dentist appointments) suddenly become welcome distractions from precautions and worry.  Other living creatures are even more cherished because we’re here to cherish them.  Life goes on. 

And may it long continue, so we may continue to be thrilled by the kinds of animal-world marvels described here. 

                                                                         NYT pic

Humans recently discovered another proof that ancient people were as much into cats as we are.  A huge feline figure about 40 yards long and thought to date back to 200 BC-100 BC was found on a hillside in Peru.  

It joins numerous other larger-than-life geoglyphs portraying myriad animals, spiders to alpacas to fish. Together, they comprise what are known as the “Nazca lines,” first discovered in 1927.
 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/world/americas/peru-cat-nazca-lines-nasca.html?               campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201020&instance_id=23299&nl=the- morning&regi_id=20760274&section_index=2&section_name=the_latest_news&segment_id=41591&te=1&user_id=a360dad7b26df61ea65737080d3deedd

Bring on Thanksgiving, so needed this year.  Much as the CDC urges people not to gather in groups for their health’s sake, the ASPCA warns against four harmful foods for pets this holiday season: (1) onions and garlic, (2) animal bones, (3) bouillon and (4) baked goods.  Worst case, an animal poison control center number is included.  

 https://www.aspcapro.org/resource/4-harmful-thanksgiving-foods-pets?utm_campaign=Tox%20Insider&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=99627958&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8_W5dMGX2otP-nJw6rexte3J24i01irvTLrQa1qYVkQvnkWj0QFOGPZCNpchFuf2gkV2nU19dg9HVNx-2cAZkc_33rEg&utm_content=99627640&utm_source=hs_email

“Freeing turkeys” (or “pardoning” them – ha! when it’s people who need pardoning for raising them to be eaten, and then doing so) is a nice-enough but minimal good deed.  Here’s another approach to freeing these sentient beings from the holiday feast:  https://dawnwatch.com/turkey-rescue/

That link leads to “DawnWatch Turkey Rescue,” where you need only to click on the video at the top: “DawnWatch Guide to Holiday Turkey Preparation.”  Prepare to be amazed.

Major Biden

Dogs & cats

My last post featured Champ Biden, one of the two family German shepherds the Bidens will bring with them to the White House.  I’ve since found a good image of Major, the younger dog, who will be the first shelter dog ever to live in the president’s mansion.  (canine poetic justice!) 

Please remember that November is “adopt an older cat month.”  It’s a great time to bring a homeless cat home for the holidays – and beyond!

Hippos au naturel

“The hippo has long been an enigma: an aquatic mammal that cannot swim, a vegetarian that is also the most dangerous animal in Africa.”  That sentence alone was enough to get my attention and prompt me to watch Hippos: Africa’s River Giants (PBS, Nature), a 55-minute documentary narrated by David Attenborough.

Hippos

Although hippos are “utterly dependent on water,” they must somehow survive when the deep floodwaters they move through gradually dry up.  The film features aerial tracking of hippos in Botswana, moving along watery channels they create by traveling through grasses around the nearby river.

No, they don’t swim through those channels – they walk or run underwater along the paths, and from above resemble swift dark torpedoes.

William

Hippos includes how they protect their families and fight their enemies.  It also shows that these animals are not lovely in any traditional way!  Any resemblance between them and “William,” the blue faience hippo who’s the unofficial mascot of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, is purely coincidental.

Animal sightings

Recently spotted: two creatures I’ve rarely seen.  First, early one morning, a hawk sat on our backyard fence, looking straight ahead– very much in charge, very understandably frightening to smaller birds and creatures.  S/he quickly flew off, maybe seeing my movement at the window.

Next was a pheasant – not seen in years -- on a school’s wooded property.  Fewer kids around may mean more pheasants. 

Albino squirrel

Finally, a second-hand sighting reported by a friend who sent a photo: an albino squirrel who lives in Burlington County, NJ.  (Wonder whether s/he likes peanuts too.)

 

 

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Relieving ‘food-insecurity’ & savoring good animal news

                                                         Catster pic

TV newscasts show long lines of cars and pedestrians waiting in line for help at foodbanks.  Volunteers stand outside supermarkets collecting food contributions for area charities.  Countless people are out of work, and in fearful numbers, they and their families are hungry. 

“Food insecurity”: an ominous and most unhappy term.  But in these days of Covid-19 and economic crisis, it’s a reality for innumerable people – and their pets.  When people must struggle to feed themselves, it’s a safe bet they’re also struggling to feed their family pets.

Catster online magazine reports that “The ASPCA recently released new data showing that more than 4.2 million pets in the U.S. are likely to enter poverty in the next six months because of COVID-19. . . . and the total number of animals living in poverty with their owners could rise to more than 24.4 million dogs, cats, horses and other animals -- a 21 percent increase in the number of animals living in poverty compared to pre-COVID estimates [in February 2020].”

In short, according to an ASPCA official, “The number of families who may be struggling to care for their pets is staggering.” 

       Alley Cat Allies pic

What to do?  First of all, if you are one of the many people experiencing food insecurity, don’t be embarrassed to look for help feeding your beloved pets.  This situation is real and it’s happening all over.  To find resources, the ASPCA advises starting by searching for food pantries (google “pet food pantry near me”).  Some local shelters run food banks and pantries, and veterinarians can also make suggestions. 

Check the aisles in pet stores like PetSmart and Petco for samples to stock up on.  Those stores may also have coupons you can use.  And/or, phone your favorite cat food vendor to ask about coupons and free samples. 

Pet-related “organizations are here to help,” the ASPCA says.  That’s what they’re all about.  (Readers: If you have more suggestions for food-insecure people and their pets, please share them by commenting here!) 

https://www.catster.com/lifestyle/how-to-feed-your-cat-if-youre-food-insecure?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=Catster%20Ful%20List90%20Day%20Engaged%20and%2010%20Day%20New%20Signups&utm_campaign=CED20201030

White House dogs

There’s enough good animal news around to savor and lift our crisis-depressed spirits for a while.  So let’s “accentuate some positives.” 

Champ Biden

First of all, get ready to meet Champ and Major, who will move into the White House in January.  German Shepherd members of the Biden family, they’ll be the first dogs in residence since the Obama administration.  Champ’s the older one (12), while Major’s a young adult (2) and will be the first shelter dog to live there. 

Maybe Major’s special status will encourage more people to “adopt, not shop.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/08/us/politics/biden-dogs.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20201109&instance_id=23933&nl=the-morning&regi_id=20760274&segment_id=44007&te=1&user_id=a360dad7b26df61ea65737080d3deedd

And on the subject of adopting, November is “Adopt a senior cat month” – an idea that’s both wise and humane.  Typically, senior cats are already trained and they are who they are, so no wondering what a kitten may grow into.  Seniors are often more needy; they may have been abandoned or suffered the loss of previous owners.  And for lack of someone to adopt and love them, they may be threatened with euthanasia instead of being able to enjoy their “golden years.”  

Save-a-swan

                         NYT pic

Here’s a hypothetical animal-in-need problem for you: In the midst of a bike ride, you come upon a swan who is clearly ill and needs medical attention asap.  How can you possibly help her?   

As with the young woman in the story below, it’s an easy decision to help.  Then, with the swan (uncharacteristically docile) wrapped in her jacket, she traveled 23 miles by foot, car and subway to get her to help.  Holding on to her bicycle throughout the trip! 

“At the end of the day,” the swan was being cared for at an animal rehab center and the woman was happy to have spent the day enjoying nature – and saving a life.  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/nyregion/swan-jamaica-bay-rescue.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20201112&instance_id=23996&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=20760274&segment_id=44281&user_id=a360dad7b26df61ea65737080d3deedd

Kitten rescue

New York’s subway ridership may be a bit thin these days, but it’s been swelled lately by the swan mentioned above and a rescued stray kitten being bottle-fed.  Here’s the Dodo story about a  man who saved the kitten, then matter-of-factly took care of her. 

Saluting people who become animal heroes! 

                                                                      Dodo pic

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With suggestions for food-insecure pet-owners or with other thoughts to share, please comment at  1moreonce.blogspot.com.  

Evolution

Evolution

by Margaret Ross

 

 

 

The corpses weigh nothing, nearly nothing, even your breath is breeze enough to scatter them

We steamed them in tupperware with a damp sponge then we tweezed the stiff wings open

The wing colors would brush off if you touched them

3,000 butterflies raised and gassed and shipped to Evolution, the store in New York rented by an artist hired to design a restaurant

He wanted to paper the walls with butterflies

Each came folded in its own translucent envelope

We tweezed them open, pinned them into rows on styrofoam flats we stacked in towers in the narrow hallway leading to the bathroom

Evolution called itself a natural history store

It sold preserved birds, lizards, scorpions in lucite, bobcat with the eyes dug out and glass ones fitted, head turned

Also more affordable bits like teeth and peacock feathers, by the register a dish of raccoon penis bones

This was on Spring

The sidewalks swarmed with bare-armed people there to see the city

You could buy your own name in calligraphy or written on a grain of rice by someone at a folding table

Souvenir portraits of taxis and the Brooklyn Bridge lined up on blankets laid over the pavement

The artist we were pinning for had gotten famous being first to put a dead shark in a gallery

For several million dollars each he sold what he described as happy pictures which were rainbow dots assistants painted on white canvases

I remember actually thinking his art confronted death, that’s how young I was

We were paid per butterfly

The way we sat, I saw the backs of the other pinners’ heads more than their faces

One’s braids the color of wine, one’s puffy headphones, feather cut and slim neck rising from a scissored collar, that one bought a raccoon penis bone on lunch break

Mostly we didn’t speak 

Another life glimpsed in a detail mentioned, leaving or arriving 

She lived with a carpenter who fixed her lunches

Come fall I’d be in college

I smelled the corpses on my fingers when I took my smoke break leaning against a warm brick wall facing the smooth white headless mannequins in thousand-dollar shift dresses

The deli next door advertised organic toast and raisins on the vine

Mornings, I tried to learn from eyeliner and shimmer on faces near mine on the train

Warm fogged imprint on a metal pole where someone’s grip evaporated

Everyone looking down when someone walked through asking for help

At Evolution, talk radio played all day

A cool voice giving hourly updates on the bombing of another city which it called the conflict

The pinner in headphones sometimes hummed or started a breathy lyric 

“Selfish girl—”

I watched my tweezers guide the poisonous exquisite
blue of morpho wings

Their legs like jointed eyelashes

False eyes on the grayling wingtips
to protect the true face

The monarch’s wings like fire pouring through a lattice

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(Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 22, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.)

Monarch sanctuary in Mexico

                        

Alert to readers:  Expect AnimalBeat II posts to resume next month after exploration of alternative blog platforms.  (Till then, stay safe and VOTE on Nov. 3!)

2 approaches to living with wild animals

Hey, thanks, Gov. Murphy: 286 dead bears in the first of two hunts this year. Just think how many more bears December’s hunt may net. The grand total will probably make it hard to ever stop bear hunts in New Jersey, even though you’ve said this year’s will be the last. 

 Then again, while running for office, you also said you’d end bear hunts – but that proved impossible to do, either promptly or completely. So here we are as your re-election campaign gets underway, still wondering what your word is worth. And also wondering how many of those 286 dead bears were innocent, vulnerable cubs. How many were moms, needed by cubs? And how many bears were lured into range because they were baited – attracted by easy food left out just for them?

Killing cubs and baiting bears are unsportsmanlike, inhumane practices permitted in very few other places; leave it to NJ to permit both of them. But when we have bear hunts here, we pull out all the stops. So for instance, numerous out-of-staters were allowed to travel here for the trophy hunt -- in the midst of a worldwide pandemic – jeopardizing NJ residents with a killer virus on top of the perils inherent in archery and muzzle loading rifles.

 

Way to go, Gov. Murphy! A well-meaning letter writer from Connecticut urged in Monday's Times of Trenton “New Jersey opponents should make their voices heard and demand that bear hunting end in their state.” She’s obviously unaware of years of such protests, with marches, demonstrations, billboards, letters and phone calls (etc., etc.), with establishment of a statewide coalition against the hunt and with proposed rule changes that would remove bear hunts from the state’s bear management plan. What does it take?

The other side of this coin was illustrated on Saturday, as the Wildlife Conservation Network (wildnet.com) wound up its 2-day virtual expo. As was the case on Oct. 10, the program consisted of scientists and other experts, including local people committed to the animals featured, reporting to participants and donors about the progress of their work. Once again, I “attended” as many sessions as possible: Yellowstone wolves; elephants, Grevy’s zebras, pangolins. Each session ran for about an hour, with Q&A periods afterwards. 

Yellowstone Wolf

 

In all cases, those involved in the presentation spoke from wherever in the world they’re stationed, often with subtitles, and yes, the technology made all that look easy. As one African leader described his work with elephants, they moved around in a savanna area behind him. Wearing beautiful beaded collars, village women explained their unique contributions to animal welfare. A young man who began as an intern told us how he gained knowledge and greater responsibility; post pandemic, he will leave for Ph.D studies. 

 

Grevy's Zebra

I consistently heard and witnessed how Westerners made team-members and partners of the people living in areas with threatened animal species. “More conservation that’s Africa-led, for Africans,” was how one speaker put it. 

Ideally, progress comes through changing hearts and minds, rather than law enforcement. That’s why, as his motivations and needs were considered, one pangolin poacher became a pangolin protector. Local people often join animal-guard corps in forests and sanctuaries, or work with automated tracking systems for animal movement all over the continent. 

Why should we care about all this, one speaker asked, then answered: “because the future is going to become coexistence.” Eating wildlife, including pangolins, is thought to be behind Covid-19, and commercial wildlife trafficking must end! That conclusion leads to a New Yorker article about pangolins that will sadden you while informing you about the origins of the coronavirus via wild animal consumption. Its print title, “The Sobbing Pangolin,” sets the tone much better than the online title.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/31/did-pangolins-start-the-coronavirus-pandemic

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Bear hunt status (not good) & wildlife expo (notable)

                                                              Kehoe pic

Bear hunts just won’t go away in NJ.  

If only Governor Murphy had done what candidate Murphy promised to do – end the bear hunts, period; if only DEP’s Division of Fish & Wildlife were not dominated by hunters; if only decision-making bodies (thinking of you, NJ Fish and Game Council) included a fair cross-section of citizens, instead of hunters and their sympathizers; if only bear-proofing recommendations were enforced . . . our black bears might enjoy the unthreatened lives year after year that they deserve.   

But no.  Despite Herculean efforts by myriad individuals and organizations to end NJ bear hunts, the first week of the scheduled hunt started today.  It is, as described in an op-ed by Senators Lesniak and Torricelli, an “unpopular, baited trophy hunt during the worldwide pandemic.”  What worse a time than now?  https://www.insidernj.com/governor-murphy-ban-2020-bear-hunt/ 

Gov. Murphy’s surprising tweet last Monday announced that the 2020 bear hunt will be the LAST.  That’s terrific, but . . . this year’s hunt (this week and another in December) is needless, risky and overall ill-advised.  Why, given all the precautions against the pandemic, should NJ permit a hunt go forward? 

Curious minds want to know: could the current bear hunt be intended to appease hunters, while the “no more hunts after that” declaration be designed to win animal advocates’ support, again, in Murphy’s re-election campaign next year?   

Anyway, the bow hunt segment of the hunt started today, so nothing has changed for 2020.  The Bear Group (a program of APLNJ) and the League of Humane Voters (LOHV) of New Jersey urge activists to keep up with developments on Facebook.  

All animals, all weekend!

It was way more than “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”  It was rhinos, wild cats and okapis, along with painted dogs, Andean cats and lions – and so many more.  “It” was the first day of the (virtual) Wildlife Conservation Network Expo, all day Saturday.

Okapi

Previewed in my last post, the Expo featured video stories from conservationists in the field and wildlife champions around the world.  Throughout the videos I watched, both mutual respect among the scientists and local people involved and great regard for the animals being protected were readily apparent. And of course, I saw animals in their natural habitats while learning more about all of them.

Just ask me about the painted dogs of Zimbabwe or the rhinos of South Africa and Indonesia.  I saw wild cats I didn’t know existed (nor, till recently, did many of their discoverers) and sharks, and watched an okapi simply melt into the dense foliage of his habitat.  

One speaker dwelled on involving area people where the painted dogs live and sensitizing kids to these animals: “If you don’t know something, you don’t care about it.”

Another pointed out that “Conservation is really a social science: we work with people to better their lives, and they in turn help reduce threats to animals.”

Painted Dog

I couldn’t see all the videos I wanted to (elephants!), but they’ve been saved for viewing as convenient (along with earlier years’ reports).  And the Expo continues next Saturday, beginning around 10:30 am. (You could probably still register; name your own fee.)

Cat maintenance

Last Friday I attended a virtual Princeton Adult School class on “The Cat's Meow: Home Maintenance for the Cat Owner.”  Besides seeing numerous cats bathed (something I’d dread doing), I picked up some tips on grooming, including (1) with all combs, make sure the teeth are ground down (cats have very sensitive skin); (2) de-matting rakes, mat breakers and scissors are not recommended for cat coats; (3) “Every cat should feel like a show cat” (to which I’d add: “but shouldn’t have to be a show cat”)!   

                                                                                                   Catster pic

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